The Rev. Dr. Sakena Young-Scaggs

Rev. Dr. Sakena Young-Scaggs is Senior Associate Dean for Religious and Spiritual Life and Pastor of Stanford Memorial Church.

In this role, she guides, nurtures, and facilitates spiritual and religious life within the Stanford University community, generally, and particularly leads the Christian Ecumenical Worshiping community at Stanford Memorial Church. She truly believes in empowering individuals of all faiths and no faiths to encounter life’s most pressing questions to feel connected to themselves and others, whoever and wherever they are on their journey.

Rev. Dr. Sakena Young-Scaggs holds a BA in Italian Culture and Language and a BA in International Studies. After completing both her MDiv and STM at Boston University, she worked and served in Higher Education for over a decade as what she calls an "academic midwife" lending to her contention that we must birth new life every day in the academy and nurture students toward their success. “Rev. Dr. Sys” or simply Rev. Sys as her students call her, is an ordained Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She has previously served as the Associate Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University and as the Associate Protestant University Chaplain at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

 Upon completion of her PhD in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University, she began her former post as an Honors Faculty Fellow at the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University.

Previously, she was a member of the faculty at the Brown University Africana Studies Department, The Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University, where she also taught in the School of Social Transformation.

Dr. Young-Scaggs is experienced in facilitating professional learning sessions. Her praxeological work comes alive as a minister and theologian as the Pastor of Stanford Memorial Church as she presides at University Public Worship and Black Church, advises the Stanford Gospel Choir, and supervises seminarian field education students and graduate research fellows. She coordinates a host of events and activities as the Resident Fellow of Ujamaa House.

Rev. Dr. Young-Scaggs has given talks and lectures. She continues to write and research intersectionally and interdisciplinarily. Her work continues to interrogate transformational issues in the academy and the world.